Insecticide misuse is widespread in rice production in most Asian countries. About 80% of farmers’ insecticide sprays maybe considered as misuse as they are applied at the wrong time using wrong chemicals and for the wrong targets. In addition most spray equipment used has poor delivery and thus large proportions of the sprays are wasted and do not reach the pest targets. More importantly these sprays disrupt natural control mechanisms making rice ecosystems vulnerable to pest build ups. Pests such as the planthoppers are usually low in numbers and would only become pest problems when induced by insecticide misuse. A recent ADB working paper, published in August 2013 highlights these issues and outlines a new path for plant protection services to be reformed and pest management to adopt an ecological engineering approach.

Changes in Myanmar also present unique opportunities to adopt a new path in developing new plant protection paradigms and services that is more sustainable, environmentally and socially sound. Lessons from the Green Revolution as well as the recent planthopper outbreaks all over Asia can be used to develop this new path. An International Symposium on Ecological Engineering in rice pest management was held in Yangon on 11 November 2013. Organized by IRRI in collaboration the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MOAI), the Myanmar Rice Federation (MRF) and sponsored by ADB, the Symposium also launched the award winning documentary film, “Hopper Race” produced by TV Environment Japan. Speeches via video were presented by Sir Gordon Conway of the UK, Dr Robert Zeigler, Director General of the IRRI and Professor Geoff Gurr, Charles Sturt University, Australia. Sir Gordon spoke about the lessons from the Green Revolution and Dr Zeigler about the unique opportunity for Myanmar to lead the world in developing better pest management strategies for rice. Professor Gurr spoke on how ecological engineering can be used to conserve the unique natural richness in biodiversity and ecosystem services in rice ecosystems. Dr George Rothschild, former IRRI Director General and now professor emeritus in the University of Greenwich, UK in his keynote address emphasized the need for Myanmar to focus on developing a governance framework that will prevent pesticide misuse. This framework will include pesticide laws and enforcement, accreditation programs for plant protection professionals and pesticide retailers and capacity building in MOAI and the universities.

Dr KL Heong, a consultant at IRRI, presented data showing that farmers’ insecticide sprays have little or no productivity gains. Instead they make rice systems vulnerable to hopper outbreaks and farmers are better off not using any insecticides as emphasized by FAO’s “Save and Grow” document. Dr Larry Wong spoke on the dominance of the pesticide detailers in information supply chain resulting in the untrained village retailers acting as the pest advisors and pesticide suppliers. Pesticides are poisons but are being sold as FMCGs. Dr Lu Zhongxian, Mr Le Quoc Cuong and Ms Wantana S. spoke of successes in the implementation of ecological engineering in China, Vietnam and Thailand, respectively. Dr Monina Escalada emphasized the need to communicate to the millions of farmers using the mass media and effectiveness in using entertainment-education principles in developing radio and TV programs for farmers.

The new path for plant protection services in Myanmar would require an innovative structure equipped with pest information, pest diagnostics and accreditation programs. Dr W.H. Loke described how CABI’s PLANTWISE (PW) program will help provide the framework for plant protection services with these elements. He also reported that PW will begin operating in Myanmar training certified plant doctors from 2014.

“Hopper Race” is an awarding winning documentary film produced by Ms Juka Kawaai of TV Environment Japan in collaboration with ADB and IRRI. The film won the “Matsukawa Award for Best Documentary” this year and the Myanmar language version developed for national broadcasts was launched in the Symposium.

In the welcome remarks of the minister of agriculture HE U Myint Hlaing delivered by Dr Thein Lwin, he thanked ADB an IRRI for organizing the important event that will help Myanmar move towards adopting sustainable pest management. Dr U Sein Win Hlaing, vice president of MRF said that Myanmar is in good position to follow a new path through learning from experiences of neighboring countries.

The positive effects of the ecological engineering initiative launched by vice minister, Dr Bui Ba Bong, in September 2010 have been picking up among rice farmers in the Mekong. In June 2012 a TV entertainment education series called “Cong Nghe Sinh Thai” was launched. TV Vinh Long broadcast 45 episodes twice a week from July 2012 and in August 2013 we conducted an evaluation survey to determine impact of the TV series on farmers. Five hundred and ninety three (593) farmers in 3 provinces in the Mekong were interviewed and preliminary results showed that farmers who had viewed the TV series had reduced insecticide application and more favorable attitudes towards adopting the growing of flowers on the bunds. An important factor that determines farmers’ adoption of ecological engineering are perceived barriers and here we examine these factors.

The concept of perceived barriers has been used in behavioral medicine in association with the Health Belief Model. This was adapted into the Pest Belief Model (Heong and Escalada 1999) and together with Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behavior (TpB) helped to understand and quantify farmer pest management decisions. The 3 important components contributing to farmers’ intention to adopt are behavioral attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. In reality intention to adopt does not always translate to adoption and the key factors involved may be perceived barriers.

Perceived barrier attitudes may obstruct or favor the actual adoption. Health communication research has shown that the lack of perceived behavioral control can impede adoption of healthy lifestyle practices (Glanz, Rimer & Lewis, 2002). For instance a common perceived barrier to joining a gym is that it is expensive despite of increased knowledge of the benefits of physical activities.

In the evaluation survey we introduced 7 perceived barrier belief statements and asked farmers to score how true were they using a response cue card of scores from 1 to 5. The Likert scales used were 1 = “Definitely not true”, 2 = “In most cases not true”, 3 = “Maybe true”, 4 = “In most cases true” and 5 = “Always true”. We conducted a reliability assessment using Cronbach’s alpha and found that the belief statements were reliable and consistent as alpha = 0.734. The reliability analysis was used to study the properties of measurement scales and the items that compose the sum of scores. It provides information about the relationships between individual items in the scale and computes the Cronbach alpha that evaluates for internal consistency. The closer the Cronbach’s alpha is to 1, the higher is the internal consistency (Gliem & Gliem, 2003). It is widely accepted for the alpha value to be 0.70 or higher for a set of items to be considered reliable. The belief scores were computed into an index using the equation below

Perceived barrier index = (Sum of belief scores – 7)/ 28

where 7 is the Min sum of scores and 28 is Max sum of scores – Min sum of scores

The perceived barrier index varies from zero to 1.0, where zero indicates the barriers were most constraining and unfavorable while 1.0 indicates the barriers were most favorable. The TV viewers had significantly higher (F = 9.1 p =0.003) that that of non viewers, 0.617 and 0.564 respectively, an increase of 9.4%. It is evident that the TV series have modified the perceived barrier attitudes of viewers in favor of adoption. The index is still relatively low ie below 0.7 indicating that are lots of room for improvement to motivate adoption.

Table 1. Comparison of perceived barrier beliefs between viewers and non-viewers of the TV series in percent of farmers who said that the statements were “in most cases true” and “always true”

Belief statements

Viewers

Non viewers

F values

Sig

% farmers

Flowers on bunds attract more pests and disease to rice

13.4

18.8

21.0

**

Non rice habitats are sources of rice pests and diseases

19.6

28.8

28.9

**

Flowering on bunds will die when we burn straw after harvest

54.2

57.4

2.3

ns

Bunds are for walking and planted flowers will not survive

33.9

36.5

5.7

ns

Bunds are too narrow no place to grow flowers

38.7

39.3

3.1

ns

Growing of flowers provide no benefits to farmers

11.7

12.0

10.1

*

Growing flowers is additional burden to farmers

26.2

39.2

3.7

ns

We further examined the individual belief statements and found that three perceived barrier beliefs were significantly modified while there were no significant changes in the other four. The perception that non rice plants on the bunds and in nearby habitats were sources of rice pests and diseases were significantly modified. Fewer farmers who had viewed the TV series believed that these were true. For the other statements, there was a decline in viewers believing the statements to be true although not significantly different. These might indicate that some of these beliefs are more “anchored” and probably require more time and message repetitions.

In September 2012, the PLANTWISE pilot project for Thailand rice pest management was approved. PLANTWISE modules for rice were developed and in May 2013, the first training of “plant doctors” was conducted. Fifteen plant doctors underwent 2 weeks of training in methods in pest and disease diagnoses, running of plant clinics, communication skills with farmers and reporting findings from farmers. The Rice Department has since initiated 7 plant clinics including 3 mobile units for rice pest management in 3 regions.

In the review and planning meeting held on 1 October 2013, PLANTWISE participants from Thailand, CABI SE Asia and IRRI developed plans for the next 6 months. In field reports, plant doctors shared experiences especially on diagnosis difficulties. In many cases farmers had not provided plant samples and were verbally describing their problems. In addition plant doctors have also encountered new problems, such as the bakanae disease and did not have sufficient knowledge to provide recommendations from the diagnosis. Fact sheets of key pest and disease problems, to be translated into Thai, were prepared by the team and these will provide additional information to farmers. As the local terms for pests used vary from province to province, fact sheets would need to be adapted accordingly.

PLANTWISE is a framework for sustainable plant protection that will empower farmers in making informed decisions in handling pest problems. It consists of 3 basic components, information/data base, diagnostics and accreditation. Since farmers often rely on pesticide dealers on plant protection matters, it is important that pesticide dealers have better accreditation. In consultation with Dr Weerawooth Katanyukul, past president and advisor to the Thai Agro Business Association (TABA) a consultation workshop on developing a Pesticide Dealers’ Accreditation Program was developed to be held in mid December 2013. This initiative will be a first towards professionalizing plant protection services to address the call made in the ADB Working Paper #27 (link to ) to fix the insecticide misuses that are threatening Asian rice farming and food security. The stakeholders to be invited to this workshop will include TABA, CropLife SE Asia, Pesticides Board Malaysia, Thai Crop Protection Association (TCPA), Thai Department of Agriculture and an expert on dealers’ accreditation from either Europe or Australia. For out-scaling the Thai pilot project experiences to other countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), an experience sharing workshop that will involve rice plant protection specialists from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam is being planned to be conducted in the first quarter of 2014.

The award-winning ecological engineering (EE) TV series developed by the ADB-IRRI Rice Planthopper Project in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and TV Vinh Long was launched on 23 June 2012 in Vinh Long. The series known locally as “Cong Nghe Sinh Thai” was developed as an entertainment-education program to bring about positive attitude and practice changes among rice farmers in Vietnam in pest management. Each episode has 3 parts beginning with a short comedy skit followed by an explanatory discussion with a local expert and wrapped up with a short discussion on benefits of using EE. A total of 45 episodes, broadcast twice weekly, were on air and these are available from the TV Vinh Long website. At the 32nd National TV Festival in December 2012, “Cong Nghe Sinh Thai” won the Gold Medal in the science education category.

The TV series has 3 parts starting with a comedy skit by popular comedians.

Two months after the launch, a “Meet the actors” day was organized to popularize the series and in monitoring focus group discussions we found that the lessons in the series were well understood. In August 2013 a post-broadcast assessment survey was conducted through structured interviews of 593 farmer respondents in the provinces of Vinh Long, Tien Giang and Dong Thap in the Mekong Delta. The questionnaire was prepared in English after focus group discussions and translated into Vietnamese and then pretested before administering the survey.

Table 1: Comparison of respondent profile, sample sizes and farmers’ input practices between viewers and non viewers of the ecological engineering TV series in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Parameters

Viewers

Non viewers

F values

Sig

Sample size (N)

351

242

Age (years)

49.2

49.7

0.24

ns

Years in rice farming (years)

24.5

23.8

0.50

ns

Education (years)

8.1

7.0

18.3

**

Yield last season (t/ha)

6.1

5.9

4.6

*

Seed rate (kg/ha)

167.4

186.7

26.5

**

Nitrogen application (kg/ha)

88.9

94.3

4.1

*

Number of insecticide sprays last season

2.1

2.6

21.1

**

Day of 1st insecticide application

31.0

26.7

22.0

**

% farmers with no insecticide application

8.0%

4.1%

ns not significant * significant at p = 0.05 ** significant at 0.01

Of the farmers interviewed, about 41% had not watched any of the TV series episodes. Most farmers (60%) watched five or fewer episodes and only 7% had watched more than15 episodes. Farmers who had viewed the TV series spray significantly less insecticides (19% less), used less nitrogen fertilizer (6% less), lower seed rates (12% less) and applied their first insecticides later in the season (Table 1). The yields of viewers were marginally higher than non viewers (difference of 0.2 t/ha).

Farmers who had watched the TV series could recall what they learned from the series. Table 2 shows the most common lessons farmers cited. Although the idea of growing nectar flowers on the bunds for pest management was only launched in 2011, a higher proportion of TV series viewers had recalled the various lessons they had learned.

Table 2: TV series viewers recalling what they had learned from the TV series.

If insecticides are to be used, apply them correctly according to 4 rights

11.9

Techniques in flower growing

9.6

*Multiple response

In addition, the TV series viewers cited various benefits (Table 3) they had obtained from the TV educational series. A high proportion cited reducing production cost, chemical inputs, increasing profits and reducing labor costs as benefits.

“HOPPER RACE” is an award winning documentary film about the rice brown planthopper outbreaks and how they affect farmers. It was produced by Ms Juka Kawaai a producer in TV environment Japan (TVE) in collaboration with IRRI and ADB. In June 2013 the film was awarded the prestigious Matsukawa Award for Best Short Documentary. A “versioning” workshop was held with several national film makers to translate and adapt the film for local audiences. The first version to be completed and was aired nationwide was Vietnam where the 10 chapters were translated into Vietnamese and broadcast nationally over VTV 2. In June 2013, the Khamer version was broadcast over national TVK (TV Khampuchea).

Thai woman farmer who lost her husband because of excessive spraying and persistent planthopper outbreaks that ruined him.

In Myanmar the Myanmar Rice Federation (MRF) completed the translation of Hopper Race into Burmese. Working with Yezin Agricultural University Hopper Race will be aired in the “Farmer Channel” of the Ministry of Agriculture and irrigation (MOAI). In Yangon Hopper Race will be on SKY-NET TV.

IRRI in collaboration with MOAI organized the “Rice Sector Strategy Planning Workshop” in Nay Phi Taw September 9 – 10, 2013. In his keynote address, Dr Robert Zeigler, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute, emphasized that Myanmar has the opportunity to avoid the pitfalls of insecticide misuse that have caused massive planthopper outbreaks in China, Thailand, Indonesia and several rice growing countries in Asia. With economic reforms occurring rapidly in Myanmar it is important for MOAI to take a hard look at the pesticide laws, revise them as necessary and establish government structures to strictly implement pesticide marketing regulations as pesticide misuse is caused by weak marketing regulations . This is especially the case when farmers have been observed to start prophylactic spraying in newly transplanted rice crops.

Ecological engineering (EE) concepts were first introduced into rice pest management in 2008 by Professor Geoff Gurr at the International Rice Planthopper Conference held at IRRI, Los Banos, Philippines. EE focuses on increasing functional biodiversity to enhance ecosystem services and on conserving naturally occurring biological control services. The balance created would reduce the vulnerability of rice crops to insect pest infestations, especially pest outbreaks of leaf folders and planthoppers. In the past 3 years, research partners from China, Thailand and Vietnam research and upscaling activities to introduce these concepts to pest management scientists, extension, policy makers and to rice farmers. A series of standard research techniques in ecology as well as in social sciences were developed and the same protocols have been applied. The research protocols are found in https://ricehoppers.net/research-protocols/ . As the Rice Planthopper Project is nearing its completion, two data analysis workshops have been organized to consolidate data sets and perform within and cross country analyses.

Group picture of sociological workshop held in Bangkok, Thailand

The cross country data analysis workshop of the upscaling data collected in a series of pre and post interventions was held in Bangkok, Thailand June 20 – 22, 2013. At the hands-on workshop participants from China, Thailand and Vietnam conducted analyses of the respective data sets using SPSS tools. In comparing changes in farmers’ practices and attitudes, the key dependent variable used was the number of insecticide sprays applied. A psychometric framework was applied in measuring famers’ beliefs and the belief scores were consolidated into two belief indices related to pest management (PMBel) and ecological engineering adoption (EEBel). Since a standardized set of items have been used in the surveys conducted in China, Thailand and Vietnam, these indices may be used for cross country analyses. Favorable changes in attitudes of farmers have been consistently shown from the pre – post data sets in China, Thailand and Vietnam.

Group picture of the ecological workshop held in Los Baños, Philippines

The cross country data synthesis workshop of the ecological engineering data was held in IRRI, Los Baños, Philippines July 29 – 31, 2013. A similar hands-on approach was used and participants from China, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines worked on their respective data sets. Arthropod data collected in 2010, 2011 and 2012 from EE sites in China, Thailand and Vietnam were analyzed using GLM available in GENSTAT and inferences were drawn from the analyses. Biodiversity analysis was introduced and participants sorted their data sets captured in Excel into functional groups and computed biodiversity indices such as species richness using ecological statistical software ECOSIM. Additional analyses were performed using EstimateS.

The data sets will be further “cleaned” up for further statistical analyses in Australia and in IRRI.

The first ecological engineering (EE) experiments in Vietnam were carried out in Cailay district. We collaborated with villagers to populated the bunds surrounding rice fields with nectar flowering plants instead of spraying them with herbicides. We found that natural enemies in the EE field increased significantly. Ecological engineering, known locally as Cong Nghe Sinh Thai” and a new innovative concept in Vietnam was explained by Professor Nguyen Van Huynh when he published a popular article in Nong Ngiep, a local agricultural newspaper. The EE initiative was launched by vice minister Dr Bui Ba Bong in 2011 and to further upscale EE, An Giang province also launched a campaign with a public parade. Vinh Long province developed an Ecological Engineering TV series that was on air twice a week for 40 weeks.

Posters used to promote EE featuring protection of bees and small bees (parasitoids)

The Southern Regional Plant Protection Center organized a Conference and was attended by 90 plant protection officials from 22 provincial plant protection centers and university professors in the Mekong to further promote EE as a sustainable way to manage rice pests. The Conference was covered by Tienphong news. At the Conference Mr Le Quoc Cuong presented recent data showing more than 7800 farmers are now practicing EE and had significantly reduced insecticide use to one or no insecticide spray a season. No brown plantopper outbreaks have been reported from these sites in the last 3 years. A total of 46,000 leaflets, 12,100 posters and 15 roadside billboards have been distributed and TV and radio broadcast EE 129 times. On 8 March 2012 the “ Women in EE” program was launched in My Tho. EE demo sites are now being carried out in 4 other provinces.

In his concluding remarks, Dr K.L Heong alluded to five important challenges that plant protection services will face in the foreseeable future:

The producer of “Hopper Race”, a documentary film about the rice planthopper problems in Asia, Ms Juka Kawaai, of TV Environment Japan, received the prestigious Matsukawa Award for Best Short Documentary in the Yufuincho Film Festival, one of the oldest film festival in Japan. The film produced in collaboration with IRRI and ADB captures not only the scientific elements why rice planthopper outbreaks occur but the human aspects of the pest outbreaks.

Planthopper problems in Asia not only threaten rice production, they cause miseries to farmers. Some plunge into poverty after losing crops in succession and unable to finance their debts to the pesticide companies. Some had even resorted to suicide because of the miseries the pest had caused. Today planthoppers are the most threatening pests to the sustainability of rice production in Asia and yet these problems are completely man-made as the pests are induced by insecticides. In just 2 or 3 months, freed from natural control mechanisms, the planthoppers can increase exponentially as much as 100,000 folds and destroy crops. The documentary film, “Hopper Race”. In her film, Ms Kawaai narrates the stories from the planthoppers’ perspectives and the huge tool the pest outbreaks have on farmers. One of the highlights of the film was an interview with a woman who had lost her husband as he had committed suicide after losing several successive crops and owing the pesticide shop thousands of baht from the insecticides he had taken out on credit.

This Thai lady was crying because her husband had committed suicide when they lost 5 consecutive crops to BPH and still in debt owing the pesticide retailer thousands of baht.

Ms Juka Kawaai spent about 3 years, filming in Vietnam, Thailand, China and the Philippines to put together a touching story. She has simplified the ecological principles into a language that will target non scientists, provided footages of natural enemies eating planthoppers to keep them under control and the impact of insecticides on these naturally occurring forces. In addition she has captured the human dimension of how rice farmers are trapped in a vicious cycle. Unable to have alternate income sources farmers had learned to make sacrifices in house expenses and cope with the losses and threats.

“Hopper Race” is a short documentary on the rice planthopper problems that have been threatening the sustainability of rice production In Asia. Filming began in 2008 at the opening workshop of the ADB-IRRI Rice Planthopper and was launched at the International Conference on Rice Planthoppers in 2012. The film, produced by TVE Japan in collaboration with ADB and IRRI, tells stories of rice farmers who became victims, suffering from the planthopper related problems: loss in production, loss in income, falling in debt from credit extended by pesticide retailers, poisoning illnesses, fear and even suicides. The 75-minute documentary of 10 chapters is being translated into 8 Asian languages for local distribution and broadcast. In April 2013, Television Vietnam broadcast the film nationwide in Vietnamese.

In May 2013, the organizers of the Yufuin Film Festival in Japan announced that “Hopper Race” has won the prestigious Matsukawa Award for Best Short Documentary. The awarding ceremony will be held in June at the Festival in Yufu, Oita Prefecture in Japan where “Hopper Race” will be screened during the Festival. Each year for the last 30 years, the Festival has been organized to honor producers and films in various categories. The Matsukawa Award was founded in 2008 to commemorate the late Yasuo Matsukawa.

In a parallel initiative, Vinh Long TV, in December 2012, won a gold medal for science education in the Vietnam film festival using the ecological engineering TV series it has produced for the ADB-IRRI Rice Planthopper Project.

“Hopper Race” is a documentary on recent return of the “Green Revolution” pests, the rice planthoppers to threaten the sustainability of rice production in Asia. Produced by Ms Juka Kawaii of TVE Japan in collaboration with ADB and IRRI it provides some insights into why the planthopper threats have returned, how the thousands of farmers have suffered from the outbreaks and discusses research efforts to restore biodiversity, health and resilience in rice ecosystems using ecological engineering. A synopsis of the documentary comprising of 10 chapters is available here and the trailer is in YouTube. The first 5 chapters were launched in November 2012 at the International Rice Planthopper Conference organized by IRRI, Zhejiang University and Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Early in 2013, TVE Japan and the ADB-IRRI Rice Planthopper Project sponsored a workshop to adapt the film for broadcast in 8 countries. Vietnam TV has just completed translating the film and will broadcast the series in 3 programs from April 30, 2013 to 3 May 2013. Details may be available from the VTV website.